


Sail the Sea (on a rocketship)

by DevinePhoenix



Category: Bleach, Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha | Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Girls, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-03-13 17:44:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18945802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DevinePhoenix/pseuds/DevinePhoenix
Summary: UraIchi 2019: Day 5 - Magical Girl AUHe knew, distantly, that something was not right with that wrapped and hidden necklace he had found in his mother’s closet. It had clearly been there for a while, probably since before he was born, dust heavy on the cloth and the undisturbed hiding place at the very back of the cupboard.It was pretty and silver and almost looked like a stylized cross.





	Sail the Sea (on a rocketship)

**Author's Note:**

> To be honest it's been years since I watched Nanoha so I dunno If everything is acurate.  
> Basics are this:  
> Mages are people with Linker cores (ie magic cores). They need Devices to use magic because magic casting requires a heck-ton of math and it's much easier to make a computer do it. The high end ones have AI. There are different types of magic systems. The main two used in the series are Midchildean which favours long-range bombardment magic and has a 'circular' magic circle and Belkan which favours close combat and has a 'triangular' magic circle. 
> 
> There are multiple worlds that are connected by the time-space/dimension sea. Midchildea is one of the big worlds that goes around managing incidents, keeping the peace and stuff like that. There are also alot of ancient, collapsed civilizations that had a habit of leaving their superpowered tech and devices laying around. Ancient Belka was one of those, and even older than them is Al-Hazard.

Ichigo had never told anyone.

 

He knew, distantly, that something was not right with that wrapped and hidden necklace he had found in his mother’s closet. It had clearly been there for a while, probably since before he was born, dust heavy on the cloth and the undisturbed hiding place at the very back of the cupboard.

 

It was pretty and silver and almost looked like a stylized cross.

 

Something about the way it was hidden and Isshin’s frantic cleaning of Maasaki’s things after her death, prompted him to take it and never mention it to anyone. Later that night, he strung it around his neck, where no one could take it from him. This last piece of his mother, he refused to give up.

 

He spoke to it sometimes.

 

When he needed to get things off his chest, he would hold it and talk. It always warmed when he held it like that.

 

Several months after he turned fifteen, it activated.

 

Perhaps if the situation was different it never would have. It would’ve remained quiet and dormant for the rest of his life, nothing more than a pretty silver trinket. Something to be remembered fondly and passed down to any children he may have.

 

This was not the case.

 

Something in the town woke up.

 

It was a shard of forgotten tech, a magical artifact from a civilization long crumbled. There was no telling how, what was essentially an automated battle droid, had gotten to such an out-of-the-way world. It was a miracle it could function at all after a harsh crash landing and years of inactivity.

 

In the eyes of modern Battlemages, it was barely more than a hunk of scrap iron, easily destroyed. It had no fancy barrier system and it could barely fly for more than a few minutes at a time. It was a cheap and disposable ground shock troop. However, Karakura was on a closed world, an underdeveloped world that the Space and Time Administration Bureau was not in contact with. There were no local magic users or anything similar that could stop the small war machine.

 

It came on sudden, unstoppable, like an earthquake. First, they heard the screeching, like a microphone with feedback. Then it came barreling out of an abandoned part of the park like a demon straight out of hell, shattering trees and tearing up asphalt.

 

Everything about it was built to unnerve. It had bone white chitinous armour and charred black under-circuitry and six long limbs tipped with razor sharp claws. The faceless helm that passed as the head had a single ominously glowing scarlet jewel right in the center. Every movement it made was heralded by scarlet cascades of energy.

 

In minutes, dozens were killed. Buildings were razed in a rampage. There was no purpose or reason behind it, the identification sensors had just failed. Everything within a fifty-kilometer radius now registered as an enemy.

 

Half trapped under a building, with flames creeping ever closer and a monster prowling the ruins, Ichigo made a choice.

 

In his time of desperation, he pulled for anything that would answer his call. He pulled from somewhere deep inside himself. He offered it up and something drank greedily from that pool.

 

That little cross of his mother’s was no cross at all.

 

_Zangetsu_ was a Quincy-class device.

 

Mages, anyone with a Linker Core able to produce mana, needed devices to use their magic. They could try to use magic without one, but the mathematical calculations to cast a single spell were far too extensive, took too long and produced sub-par results. The devices were like wands, able to direct their magic with little effort due to embedded supercomputers that could do the multitudes of calculations needed in a matter of seconds. Higher end devices came with AIs that could process even more complicated spells.

 

Quincies were a mage culture that had fled to the isolated earth after the iron arm of the multi-dimension law ordered a purge that nearly killed off all the users. After centuries both sides had forgotten the reason for the conflict. They had hidden on earth, going deep underground and disguising themselves among the populace.

 

Quincy devices operated very much like a standard Midchildian device. They were mass produced and plain, with only a few possessing an AI. Even that AI was mass produced, a copy of AI Ywach used for each of the stronger devices. Most Quincy devices were bombardment type, made for long range destructive magic.

 

Like any modern-day Quincy, Masaki had inherited a few devices from deceased relatives. Most were the standard, identical Quincy-cross model, but one had been from a relative who had been a little more inventive. Zangetsu was a hodgepodge prototype of multiple types of magic devices all crammed into a sword. The product of a madman or a genius, it was a miracle it didn’t outright explode when it activated.

 

Zangetsu had the privilege of having multiple overprotective AIs instead of just the one.

 

First there was the bastardized Quincy AI, Old Man Zangetsu. He may have once been a Ywach clone but time and experience and a scientist fiddling around with his code had made him into a completely different person. He was in charge of long-distance magic spells and spent most of his processing power wrestling the second AI.

 

Second was an ancient Belkan AI that was halfway mad, Shiro. It had been transferred from an old Belkan war machine and had never quite adapted after centuries of loneliness and a processor downgrade. It was responsible for the close combat magic and the sword shape.

 

Finally, a young AI called Tensa Zangetsu that could only be the one created by the batshit creator to run the Frankenstein Device. A calm AI that was in charge of the spell execution as well as the secondary systems for flight spells and other useful things.

 

In the end, Ichigo didn’t have to do a thing, _Zangetsu_ consumed his mana and protected itself and its wielder as they saw fit.

 

It tore up the sky in vicious swathes of black energy, stopping and eventually tearing apart the droid.

 

Dawn found him in the ruins of the town, its inhabitants long fled or dead.

 

With one weapon in shards across the landscape, he had inadvertently awakened another one dealing with the problem. A superweapon device that had plugged itself to his monstrous mana reserves and didn’t have a concept of ‘friendly’.

 

He fled into the mountains to learn to control, fearing himself a danger to be around. He was right, in a way. For all that two out of three AIs were reasonable, they were **all** just a little too lonely and overprotective of their first owner in centuries to be trusted in public company. They were a hair-trigger nuclear bomb waiting to go off on the slightest fool that crossed them. He didn’t want to be responsible for another massacre.

 

He never found out what happened to his family, if they had died in the attack or had managed to escape.

* * *

 

Kisuke met him, years and years later.

 

Kisuke had been exiled for a long time, for crimes against humanity, illegal experimentation and ‘murder’ of multiple high-ranked mages. To put it bluntly, he was too good of a scientist. The things he made frightened Midchildea. When they finally decided to execute him before he could go rouge, he found out and vanished.

 

Exile was fun, he could go where he wanted, investigate what he wanted and build what he wanted. The only downside was that funding could be a little tight.

 

He had been tracking for magic on the world, looking to see what kind of magic system an underdeveloped world had created without the TSAB’s meddling. So far it had been nothing but disappointments, the local Quincies were far too jumpy for him to approach. But he _had_ noticed a single signal far out in the mountains.

 

He was expecting another mad magic scientist, a buried relic, something strange or interesting.

 

Instead he found a man, with long hair and ratty clothes and a linker core larger than anyone on the planet.

 

Initial contact involved a shootout, Kisuke demolished part of the mountain range and Ichigo swatted him through the other mountain.

 

For all he was a scientist, Urahara Kisuke did not get into the Onmitsu by being a pushover. He was a mage powerhouse even before he built his beloved _Benihime_ device. Just like _Zangetsu,_ It was a hybrid device but far more sophisticated and developed. It could handle many different magic styles but didn’t have the problem of multiple quarreling AIs clogging up the processor. Combined, the mage and device made a terrifying combination that few but the other SSS-rank mages could match.

 

After the dust settled down, they couldn’t help but be impressed with one another. How could they not be when they had thrown everything at each other, from multiple magic styles to martial arts to actual sword fighting to a contest of speed in a competition of whose-device-can accelerate-me-faster-without-blowing-up.

 

At the end of it, Kisuke managed to coax Ichigo out of the wilds and on to his ship with the promise of security, training, knowledge and an attempt to stabilize Zangetsu’s incredibly patchwork construction.

 

Ichigo trailed along behind him through worlds as they traipsed along, digging up Lost Logia and artifacts and causing mayhem. They were a pirate duo sailing the Time-space sea in Kisuke’s very illegal stolen cruiser.

 

And so began the Marvellous Misadventures of Ichigo and Kisuke through the dimensional seas.

**Author's Note:**

> Space pirates are fun ok. That is 100% the reason for the title.
> 
> Quincy AI – Ossan - Midchildean  
> Hollow AI – Shiro - Ancient Belkan  
> Shinigami AI – Tensa - Modern Belkan


End file.
